Monday, August 29, 2016

I really love being a teacher and feel like it is something I am truly good at but any mother who has worked full-time knows the harsh reality of being torn between two things. It is hard to come home and want to get things done when you worked all day. Normally I want to just play with Nora instead of make dinner or do any type of domestic activity.

I don't know if I will always be a working mom. I have dreams of one day staying home with our kids, but only God knows what my future truly holds.

With all the craziness, The Hubs and I have created ourselves a nice little evening routine to help us stay on top of housework and working out, while also enjoying Nora and each other.

Either way this is a crazy and also amazing season of life and this blog is meant to help document where I am in life. So, here is a glimpse into my daily schedule as full-time working momma!

5:45 AM

Alarm goes off, I immediately get up. That isn't sarcasm. I am not a snooze hitter or slow to wake up. My alarm goes off, I'm up right away and headed to the shower. I take fast showers so I'm out by 6:00 AM.

6:00 AM

Time for make-up, hair, and getting dressed. I do minimal make-up ( foundation, powder, mascara, eyeliner, blush) and really only know 3 hair styles (down and straight, down and curled or ponytail). So this part does not take long at all. I usually pick my clothes out the night before to hopefully eliminate the trying-on-a-million-outfits-dilemma.

At this time The Hubs wakes up and takes both our dogs on a quick walk around our neighborhood.

6:30 AM

The Hubs is back and Nora is usually just waking up. If she isn't already up, we have to wake her up now to give her her morning bottle and get her dressed. The Hubs feeds Nora, changes her diaper and gets her dressed (#superdad) while I eat breakfast and get all of mine and Nora's things loaded in the car.

7:00 AM

Nora and I are out the door while The Hubs gets in the shower. We give kisses goodbye and are on our way to day care and school. Nora likes to make lots of noises the whole drive to day care, it's pretty stinkin' cute! I arrive at Nora's day care around 7:15 AM.

Don't worry, this is not how we drive to work. Just set her down one moring to get the umbrella ready to run into day care!

7:20 AM

I have dropped Nora off and am in my classroom by this time. I made the decision to go into work almost a half hour earlier than I need to be there because it means I can leave much earlier at the end of the day. In the mornings there isn't time for me to sit and play with Nora but there is in the evenings so I don't want to waste that evening time. I work on classroom things like passing out morning work, writing notes on the board and making sure all my ducks are in a row for the day.

7:45-3:00

I am now in full-on Mrs. Smith mode. I am answering questions, teaching things, getting on to kids, being accidentally called mom and saying "listen to me when I am talking" a million times. Like I said before, I really do love my job but it is exhausting. By 3:00 I am ready to be home!

3:30 PM

I wrap up for the day and try to do a few things to get ready for the next day. I head to get Nora at day care, getting there around 3:40 PM.

4:00 PM

Nora and I are home and playing, just waiting for The Hubs to get home! Occasionally Nora will fall asleep on the way home and stay asleep for about 45 miuntes but not always. Most days we fill this our with playing and momma giving her a thousand kisses!

5:15 PM

Daddy is home and takes over while I make dinner. He gets time to play with Nora and I can make dinner without her distracting me. Nora usually eats at around 5:30 so either The Hubs will feed her or I will feed her while we eat dinner.

6:00 PM

We are usually done eating at this time and we have another 30 minutes to play with Nora and clean up from dinner. Most evenings lately, we put Nora on the living room floor and watch in amazement as she attempts to crawl!

6:30 PM

Nora and I begin the bedtime routine. Bath (every other night), jammies, four books, 2 songs, 1 prayer and in her crib awake!

While I am putting Nora down, The Hubs is getting our "garage gym" ready! He takes his laptop out and cues up our Daily Burn video, turns on the fans and fills up our water bottles.

7:00 PM

By 7 Nora is usually asleep or at least drowsily talking in her crib (which leads to sleep about 5 minutes later). Some people have remarked that 7 is a really early bedtime and while it does make it difficult for us to go out and do things, most nights we are just home and it is so nice to have time for just The Hubs and I!

I get my shoes on and head to the garage to work out! We do a 30 minute workout video in the garage 5 nights a week ( Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday). We lock the doors in the house and have a monitor out with us in case Nora wakes up.

7:45 PM

We are done working out and head in the house. At this time we consult our weekly cleaning schedule and do whatever is on that! This is the best thing we ever did! It literally takes 20 minutes and helps keep the house clean throughout the week so we can keep our weekends free of big cleaning days.

8:30 PM

We are done with our chore for the evening so we shower and usually grab a snack. Right now we are watching Season 2 of Castle so we usually watch one episode before we go to bed.

9:30 PM

We are usually off to bed by this time. Of course sometimes it is later and sometimes a little earlier. I am not a night owl so sometimes I even crash curing Castle and The Hubs has to wake me up to go to bed. We go to sleep and get ready to start another day all over!

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Nora at Six Months

| This child FINALLY laughed! She smiles and squeals all the times but once... only once I got her to full on belly laugh. Hopefully this will start to happen more and more!
| Getting much better at sitting up! She can do it for a good 2-3 minutes before falling now.
| Still no teeth but it HAS to happen soon! She drools constantly and chews on anything and everything!
| She reaches for people when she wants to be held. SO CUTE!

L O V E S
LOVES her dad. In the past few weeks she has become obsessed with her daddy. It is really sweet and I am only a little bit jealous.
LOVES this teether. We received two of the same teether as gifts and she recently has shown a love for that specific one only. Glad we have 2!
LOVES to kick her foot while she is on her belly. She started doing this a few days ago and it is so cute! She just repeatedly taps her little toe on the ground.
LOVES her tugglie.
LOVES her dad's hat. She stares at it with a look of awe!

H A T E S
HATES having her face washed off.
HATES being put down when she is tired.
So glad there are more loves than hates!

E A T

Nora eats like a champ, both baby food and formula. Here is her eating schedule at 6 months.

S L E E P
We still have an amazing sleeper on our hands! She now puts herself to sleep for all naps and bedtime! Such a great skill to teach your child, makes life so much easier! She had a little trouble with naps when she started back at day care but by day 3 she already was figuring it all out! We also had a rough week or so at the beginning of this month where she was waking herself from rolling over and hitting the side of the crib.

Schedule on a day at home:
| We have to wake Nora up at 6:30 now that I am back at work. Luckily she wakes up happy and we get her dressed and a bottle before her and I head to daycare/work.
| On a weekend she sleeps until 7-7:30.
| At 9:00 Nora takes her morning nap which is anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
| Between 12:30-1:00 is when she takes her longest nap of the day, anywhere from 2-3 hours!| Bedtime routine begins at 6:30 (bath, jammies, read 4 books, rock and sing 2 songs, bedtime prayer) I lay her down awake at 7:00 and she is asleep by at least 7:15 every night!

Oh Nora Kate,

This month has been the most fun yet! You are such a sweetheart and such a good little baby! I love how you grab my face when I sign to you, somehow it seems like you do it in a sweet, loving way. You accomplished many things this month and you seem more and more like a little girl than a tiny squishy baby each day. I love to watch you grow and learn new things but time can also slow down if it wants! Love you little lady. So very much.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

I have decided to change up the way I do these posts. My previous posts were very vague and that worked for the first few months, but now Nora is learning and growing in some BIG ways and I want to make sure and remember every detail! Wish I would have done this format from the start, but better late than never!

W H A T 'S N E W
Nora is growing like a weed (especially in the chub department) and learning so many new things!

| She can roll both ways
| Sit unassisted for a few seconds or in a leaning forward position.
| Reach and grab anything she wants
| Self-Soothing to sleep at night and beginning to do so for her naps too!
| Beginning to teethe. No teefers yet, but the drool is rampant and everything goes in her mouth, especially her pointer finger.

L O V E S
LOVES her jumper. She could bounce all day long in that thing, as well as chew on the edge of the seat all day long! She spend a good portion of the day completely content in that thing and squealing with delight!
LOVES taking a bath and kicking her legs in the water. A few times now she has gotten so into her kicking that she kicks the drain plug open and the water starts to empty!
LOVES any and all crinkle books.
LOVES her tugglie.
LOVES going out in public to look around and take every little thing in!
LOVES to play "Oh You Want Momma" a game I made up. It's quite riveting ;)

H A T E S
HATES lotion after baths.
HATES her carseat after long periods of time. She can handle about 15 minutes and then she is Over. It.
So glad there are more loves than hates!

E A T
Since having to switch to exclusively formula, Nora has shown no negative signs! In fact eating is a lot less stressful for us both! She takes a 4 ounce bottle in the morning and before bed and 5.5 ounces during the day. She also began solid foods this month and let me tell you, this girl is an eater!
She has tried:
Rice Cereal
Squash
Sweet Potato
Avocado
Carrot
Banana
Pear
Apple
Peas

She loves it all. Every last bite! I am currently doing a combination of homemade baby food and store bought. We were given some baby food so I don't want it to go to waste but I also wanted to make my own! So far I have made carrots, avocado, banana and peas. I don't think Nora cares who made it, she likes it all!

Right now Nora only eats solid foods in the evening but soon she will eat them at breakfast too!

S L E E P
We have been so incredibly blessed with an amazing sleeper! Now, that's not to say that we don't have weeks or days where she has a rough time sleeping but for the most part she is a pro sleeper! She went through the infamous 4 month sleep regression and then had a three day span of refusing to take naps longer than 20-30 minutes but after that all straightened out she is now on an incredible schedule!
| Nora wakes up between 5:00-5:30 and gets a small (4 oz) bottle, then goes back down until 7:00.
| At 9:00 Nora takes her morning nap which is anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
| Between 12:30-1:00 is when she takes her longest nap of the day, anywhere from 2-3 hours!
| Occasionally depending on when her afternoon nap ended she will take a 30 minute cat nap in the evening, but not always.
| Bedtime routine begins at 6:30 (bath, jammies, bounce on exercise ball and 2 songs, bedtime prayer) I lay her down awake and she is asleep by at least 7:15 every night! Yes you did the math right, my child sleeps 10 hours straight at 5 months! It is amazing. Trust me mom friends, I do not take this for granted, I know how blessed I am!
{UPDATE} I wrote this post a few days early to try and get ahead but forgot that her 5 month birthday would be while we were in Seattle. Sadly our whole trip she slept pretty terrible but the day we came home she was back to being an amazing sleeper. Guess she just really likes her own crib ;)

Oh Nora Kate,

Taking care of you is HARD work but I love it oh so much! You are just the best little gal and you make me smile daily. I love it best when you give me sloppy wet kisses and watching you see something new for the first time. I cannot wait to see all the things you will learn to do in the months to come! Keep growing NoNo. Momma loves you so much!

Friday, July 1, 2016

Homemade Baby Food. I have been making my own baby food using The Baby Bullet and I am so glad I chose to do this! I am totally not a health nut or someone who is all concerned about chemicals but I do know for sure that homemade baby food is so much better for Nora than store bought. I mainly wanted to do it because of the cost (so much cheaper!) but when I saw the recipes that are literally the food and water, I was even more excited to do it! Bonus that Baby Girl LOVES it!

| Two |

4th. Having a baby makes me ten times more excited for every holiday. I have never been a huge lover of The Fourth of July. Sure I like seeing family, chowing down and watching fire works but it just has never been a favorite holiday of mine. Now that Nora is here I am pumped for the 4th! I can't wait for her to experience all of the fun things and to wear her precious outfit! #America

| Three |

Daddy Lunch Dates. In December The Hubs took a new job (basically his dream job) and now only works 15 minutes from our house. That means in the summer he comes home for lunch every day! We love it so stinkin' much! On this particular day we were running errands and met him at Arbys! Our gal is lucky to have such a great daddy!

| Four |

Packing. Holy Cow packing for a trip is already a lot to do and no fun but adding a baby to that mix is insane! The fact that she now eats solids once a day means a whole new category of things to pack! We are going to be gone for 3 days for The 4th and it is blowing my mind the amount of things Nora needs. I don't even want to think about how much stuff I will have to pack for her when we go to Seattle a week from today... I'm worn out just thinking about it!

| Five |

Cart Cover. So I ordered Nora one of those cart covers and we tried it out the other day. I am not a germ-a-phobe by any means, I really wanted the cover so I could ditch the pumpkin seat! That thing is too big, Nora doesn't like it and I run into things like crazy when I have it on the cart. This was the perfect solution and she loved in up until the last few minutes. But let's be honest, she can only handle anything in small doses right now #onlybeenalivefourmonths